I’m getting tired of this stupid shit. Everyone knows what I’m talking about, I’m sure. Someone takes a ridiculous preventative or “pre-emptive” measure regarding a perceived threat, and that threat ends up being nonexistent and we all end up standing around with our dicks in our hands like morons.
Now, the defense I keep hearing is “well what is this had been happening, then how would you feel?” This is fucking retarded. “What if” is only good for reminiscing, not deciding future policies. And yes, this was inspired by the war with Iraq and the constant bullshit reasoning I see defending past mistakes. People keep saying “what if Saddam had WMD’s though?” He didn’t, dipshit. That’s called a huge error in judgment on the part of the Administration, and requires that they admit their fuck-up. It doesn’t require a bullshit, pretend hindsight: “well, if Saddam was storing WMD’s, then we’d have been right?” No shit! He still didn’t have them!
I could invest my life savings in an iron taint guard in case a unicorn wants to skewer my ass, but when that doesn’t happen it doesn’t mean I made the right decision in hindsight, it means I made a stupid decision. Saying, “well, if I haven’t bought the iron underwear, and a unicorn had skewered my ass, I would have been sorry!” is just retarded,
I’m not pitting the War, there’s enough of that on the boards. I’m pitting the “what if” argument being used in hindsight when the facts of recent history are as plain as day. It’s the most pathetic excuse to avoid taking responsibility for mistakes I have ever seen, and it’s coming from grown men in elected office.
Agreed. In fact, you’re articulating something I’ve felt for quite some time.
In regard to the war, I’m a bit saddened that the citizens of the United States didn’t have the intelligence to hold Bush to it. When a politician makes a statement like his, it should be taken as a bet. If he’s wrong, then he’s betting his presidency and the public shouldn’t reelect him. With people forgiving him for his ridiculous claims, there’s little incentive for the president to actually diligently try to get it right (or, in this case, to not make up ridiculous lies.) People should be held to account for the correctness of their statements. If their statements are wrong, it’s their fault. It’s not just a big coincidence when someone makes a bad judgment. In the case of the War in Iraq, there were plenty of people questioning the administration’s rationale. When making such an important decision as starting a war, it’s absolutely vital to make sure you know the facts. I’m not being very articulate about this, but it’s a style of rationalization that really irritates me.
While I agree that the Iraq war was a bad idea, I think preventative measures are commonly good things. For instance, I am the chemical safety officer for my lab. If I tell you to that you should have used eye protection when handling a strong acid that likes to explode when jostled, and you tell me “well, it didn’t explode, so I didn’t need eye protection!”, I’m pretty much going to think you’re a complete idiot.
It makes a lot of sense to act against real risks, and preventative actions against real risks are valid whether or not the incident you are protecting against ever comes to occur. Obviously, whipping up public support for not-real risks is just fear mongering.
If the president had valid reason to genuinely fear imminent (or even distant) danger to our contry from WMD, I do think it would justify aggressive action in response, even if that danger later turned out to be unfounded. The key words here being “valid” and “genuine”.
There is also the issue of proportionate response to a risk - wearing eye protection all through your life because you might someday work with an explosive acid is obviously overkill. As is banning all fluids and all gels on all planes in all airports in the U.S. in response to an overblown story about a supposed conspiracy that could never have succeeded.
I see too much of this also - not just around here, and not just regarding Iraq. It’s like a pre-emptive attack on somebody else’s hypocrisy, and usually it’s a waste of time.
Sure, but we see this sort of thing from liberals on this board quite a bit now. They’ll claim that Bush is doing something terrible and that a great crisis is imminent (see the CDC thread). In this case, however, there isn’t even anyone to say “well, it didn’t happen, did it?”, simply because of the number of these shrill claims.
Thanks. I’m glad I’m not the only person who notices this and what a lazy cop-out it is from responsibility. What prompted my rant was a woman on Bill Mahr who kept saying, in regards to the war, “well, what if Saddam had had WMD’s? Then what?”
I kepy thinking (read: shouting at the television), “then you would have been right, and those of us who opposed the war would have been wrong.” But she wasn’t, Bush wasn’t, and no one takes responsibility.
This is what we get when we elect spoiled rotten New England patricians into office: they love all the perks and think that they don’t have to take any responsibility, just the the entire previous part of their privilaged lives. Of course, its the American public’s job to take our leaders to task for this bullshit, and we haven’t been doing much of that either.
In essence, the argument I keep hearing is, “well what if we had been right! Then you wouldn’t be complaining!”
NO. FUCKING. SHIT. SHERLOCK. Pointing out that obvious fact doesn’t excuse the administration from the responsibility of having been wrong.
(I had a difficult time articulating this point as well, and I’m not sure why. It seems like, no matter how I word things, I can’t be sure if my point is getting across or not. I’m glad it did.)
Oh, I understand what your saying. In fact, I have said many times (I dont’ know if I have on the Dope yet) that if we had found an actual arsonal of usable WMD’s and plans in action for Iraq to use them against the US or our allies (or much more conclusive intelligence pointing to this), then this war would have been justified.
In the end, however, the intelligence was bad, and the war is bad. Of course anyone can say, “well, if we had been right, then all of this would have been right,” the point is that no one is taking responsibility for this monumental fuck-up.
I think the analogy is a bit off though, which you somewhat clarified in your last paragraph about “proportionate risk.” Wearing safety glasses, even if they are never utilized, doesn’t cause it’s own set of problems. Invading a country as a preventative measure, regardless of whether or not it turns out to be justified, has a huge set of dangers all it’s own and therefore requires stronger evidence to convince people of its need.
You can look back on a lifetime of wearing safety glasses and say, “well, guess I didn’t need to wear them after all!” We won’t be able to look back on this was with the same lightheartedness.
Precisely. Saying “Oops, guess we were wrong. Ha ha, imagine that!” is not an adequate response when you’ve started a war under false pretenses. Not to mention that there were plenty of people questioning the “evidence” long before the war began - and in fact the specifics of the yellowcake uranium supposedly purchased in Niger (a report that had been discredited long before the administration used it as justification) were a significant topic of conversation at that time. It’s not as though there was some strong piece of evidence suggesting the existence of WMDs. The evidence was nonexistent then and it’s nonexistent now. Not holding the president responsible because it’s theoretically conceivable that perhaps there were WMDs despite his not having any evidence for it amounts to removing any responsibility to make rational decisions. He might as well launch nuclear missiles at the moon and then say, “Yeah, but what if Osama bin Laden had been hiding there? What if? Huh?” Sure, it’s faintly within the realm of possibility, but that doesn’t make it reasonable to act as though it were true.
Dude, you’re going to give people ideas talking like this. If in a few months time there is someone giving powerpoint presentations about suspicious terrain features in the Sea of Tranquility, we’ll know who to blame.
